Getting in and how to pay for it

[Dolce7]

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I'll try to limit my background as much as possible! I have a few questions about logistics, getting into school, and ways to actually afford its high price tag like joining the military.

I'm 23 and I just graduated with a degree in Foreign Languages and I also am a practicing massage therapist. I live in Colorado and would very much like to go to CSU. My undergrad GPA is 3.5, and I have taken gen. psych, human growth, statistics, and biology and received all A's. I still have to take A&P, sociology, ab. psych, and a couple random prereqs specifically for CSU. I plan on obtaining a 4.0 in all those courses and I should be able to. I have over 500 hours of in home health care experience with a quadriplegic, and over 500 hours in massage therapy currently. I am definitely lacking in volunteer work and shadowing, but I have already contacted an occupational therapy center and I plan on having 100s of hours in each. I won't be applying to CSU and other schools until January 2014, so I figure that gives me enough time to work and pay off some loans, get all of those hours in, and take the GRE.

So I'm hoping I can get in with these stats, even though I know my undergrad GPA is slightly lower than the average at CSU. Any advice on what else I can do to prepare would be fantastic. I know they only accept 1 in 6 there.

Now finances... I am extremely tight with money and I hate having any debt whatsoever. Right now I owe 18,000 and after already paying off 3500 this summer alone, I realized that my prereqs will cost me about 7500, so I'll need to take out more loans. Plus the cost of graduate school really frightens me. I'm looking into the air force reserves, and before I talk to a recruiter, does anyone have any experience with this? I know it's technically illegal, but would being in the reserves hurt my chances of getting into school? It's one weekend a month and two weeks a year, but what if I get deployed? Would they throw out my application simply because they wouldn't want me catching up?

Thanks! I really want to be an occupational therapist, but I just want to do it wisely.

 

[babycheeks]

Your gpa and everything looks good, your doing fine on putting in the hours!

Military:

Army Medical Specialist Corps as a Occupational Therapist if you don't want debt and you want to work as an OT.

If you do the this OT route here are the requirements if you scroll down the page there is a blue button on the bottom that says locate a recruiter to talk to someone. You can ask them about how it all works and deployment etc.. http://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-j...ialist-corps-jobs/occupational-therapist.html

Now as for a school:

I mean yes of course just like ur bachelors it is gonna cost and it's gonna cost a lot more for example my program was near 56,000K and most people use loans. That means 18K plus 56K plus interest (the interest is what gets you it accumulates quickly you can pay the interest while in school and that will help but it's not always easy to make the payments unless you can handle work during a Full MOT program but for example I have discovered I can't work more than some low part time it's not enough to cover interest payments it's enough to eat etc...I have a lot of course load 15 books for this Fall term meaning my interest is doing what? Accumulating) this can vary some people pay even more for there programs like 60-70K etc.. depends on school that all must be paid back unless you got some sort of scholarship.

Two good things though the first: once you start working your job let's say a hospital they will give a loan forgiveness or sign on bonus usual about 10,000K or so but it won't cover it all so do remember that. The second: There is also public loan forgiveness if you work at a nonprofit or school as a OT you will make 120 payments on this program that is about 10 yrs and than they will drop the rest that you owe the payments are based on your income unlike standard payment plans. Example if you make 55K a year at a school as an OT and you owe 70K in loans you would owe about 478 a month for 10 years than they will drop the rest. This will limit you to schools and nonprofits for 10 yrs so do realize that you won't be able to go to certain facilities or settings also take note that schools and nonprofits usual pay less than other facilities and settings but it is a route one can take. Now if you don't take this because you want to do a variety of settings without limit to schools and nonprofits than you will owe all of the loan. You can get more information on public loan forgiveness here: http://studentaid.ed.gov/repay-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/charts/public-service

Hope that helps you! 🙂